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I had taken up singing again and together with Ottorino I began to study some of his liriche [art songs] and some antiche cantate d’amore [early love cantatas] harmonized by him; but how difficult it was to win his praise! At times I truly despaired of being able to please him: I started crying like a child. And then Ottorino, with that tenderness I will never be able to describe, took me in his arms and urged me to have faith, to keep going, and he expressed his certainty of our being able within a few months to give fine concerts together. That was my dream! More than three hundred and fifty concerts we later gave in Europe and North and South America, between 1920 and 1932.

In these impassioned lines written by Elsa Olivieri Sangiacomo Respighi, wife (as well as pupil) of the Maestro, we learn not only of the preparations for their concert activity but also of the existence of the cycle we present here in its first printed edition.